By Anika Chopra
With over 7 billion people in the world, only 10% of us seem to be left-handed. It’s surprising at the very least because every time someone sees me writing with my left hand, they say, “Wow! Are you a lefty? That’s so cool. You must be so creative!” How does one reply to that? All I do is look like a deer caught in the headlights because what is so special about being left-handed? More than that, why are there such less left-handed people in this world?
1) Is it genetics?
Did evolution decide to mess with us and create more righties than lefties? Were they that bored because righties are out here thinking the devil possesses the 10% of us because Satan was allegedly a lefty. How and why does anyone know Satan’s left-handed in the first place? Now that’s concerning.
Coming back to the cause, no one seems to know the answer. This research has been stumped to a point where geneticists haven’t been able to find the gene responsible for creating left-handed humans, and no, we’re not demon babies. On the other, left-handedness could be heredity, but it’s rare. Recent discovery state, if both parents are left-handed, there is a 26% chance that even the offspring will be. But, at large, evolution seems to have made this allele recessive. This means that it isn’t often expressed. However, it doesn’t answer why only 700 million of the 8 billion are left-handed. If it is not in our biology, where is the answer hidden?
2) Did the brain play tricks?
At the expense of boring you, neuroscience surprisingly does not have anything to do with being left-handed. The brain asymmetry that may play a role here is said to be an outward reflection of motor function. Even the smallest change in the placement of parts of the brain messes with the dominance of hands. Guess those ‘were you dropped as a baby’ jokes are not jokes after all. This has me wondering where my brain went wrong, literally.
3) The behaviour has to be the cause, is it?
Well, not exactly. Behaviour may come in the form of us choosing our hands when we were infants. Perhaps, as an infant, one second we were crawling, and all of a sudden, a shiny red object caught our eye. Without a second thought, we grabbed it and alas! This hand became the chosen one and will be in use forever! It may seem dramatic, but it’s the closest answer we have. It’s why I’m left-handed. But, what it doesn’t prove is why as infants we choose a particular hand. Is it the impulsive decision or a well thought out masterplan?
After all this time, all we know is that the devil doesn’t possess us, our brain may have played tricks on us and that an impulsive decision we made as an infant, maybe the reason why society excludes us to a point where we don’t even have left-hand friendly spiralled notebook; which is a torture to write in. This makes us lefties lonely because apparently, there is something definitely wrong with you if you’re a lefty (which is a lie, just by the way). But, you know what? We have to stick together! Who knows, our left-handedness might just save us from the zombie apocalypse.
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